Darksiders III Laptop and Desktop Benchmarks

Out of nowhere.
At the end of November without any hype in the press, the third installment in the Darksiders series came out. We examine whether it is a good or a bad sign with our performance analysis.

Technology

That there is a new installment in the Darksiders series is actually a small wonder. Because after the game publisher THQ went bankrupt in 2012, the game series seemed completely dead. However, in 2018, the action adventure game has suddenly risen from the ashes. The game was not actually developed by the original studio, Vigil Games. Instead, Gunfire Games is responsible for the new installment in the series and it has worked on remastering the original game.

In terms of gameplay, Darksiders III resembles the hard-core Dark Souls series, which is not a bad thing, given that the market is becoming oversaturated with survival games and the like. Even on the easiest setting, the fights are quite challenging, especially with the big bosses, and if you die, you will have to repeat at least a part of the level. Darksiders III is not a mindless hack-and-slash affair; it actually attempts to tell a story about the four riders of the apocalypse.

In our opinion, the tight controls are one of the biggest strengths of the game. Like many other titles in this genre, such as Batman: Arkham Knight, Darksiders III offers easy-to-master controls and fluid motion/combat. The menus and the animations also look pretty good.

The visuals can be described as passable. The developers went for a very nice comic look to distract attention from mushy textures. Special effects are also quite good.

In terms of technology, the game cuts a fine figure. We did not observe any crashes or glitches with graphics. However, the developers can improve recognition of displays. The game chose the wrong resolution on many systems. This can be fixed by restarting the game and repeatedly pressing Alt + Enter at the same time.

The selection of graphics settings is quite moderate. Besides the resolution, the display mode, the brightness and vertical synchronization, there are only seven other settings that go from epic to low. However, this does not mean that these settings have no bearing on the visuals of the game. That being said, there is not a lot of difference between the maximum settings and the medium settings, except for the vegetation density. The game starts looking considerably worse on low settings, though, especially when it comes to the lighting and shadows (compare screen shots).

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Positive: A restart is not required for changes to take effect. Darksiders III only takes up 19 GB of storage space - this is not bad at all. The loading times are quite reasonable.

Low Settings

Medium Settings

High Settings

Epic Settings

Benchmark

Attention: Even with V-Sync deactivated, the frame rate is still locked at 60 FPS. You will have to do some work to get the game to run at above 60 FPS, because to do this you will have to dive deep into the system settings. As you can see from the screen shot below, you will have to navigate to the following folder: C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Darksiders3\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor, then you will have to open the file named “GameUserSettings.ini” and make changes to the following line of code “FrameRateLimit” (you can set any value from 60 to 999). So in order to set things in order you will have to perform two main actions: 1) Restart the game and set the appropriate resolution; 2) Change one of the hidden settings using Microsoft’s File Explorer.

Our benchmark takes place in the “Safe Haven Tree”, which you can reach after about 30 minutes of gameplay. This locale is particularly suited for benchmarking, because it has quite a few characters inside and when you venture outside you are greeted with a panoramic view of the game world. We use Fraps to log a 30-second benchmark run, which you can examine in the video below. Because Darksiders III is a very fluid and fast-paced game, we recommend running it at 40 FPS at the very least, despite its third-person perspective. Demanding gamers will be happy with 60 FPS.

Results

HD (1280x720)

The system requirements are quite modest, which is good news for users with weaker systems. You can run Darksiders III even with low-end graphics cards such as the GeForce 940M on minimum settings at 720p.

FHD (1920x1080)

To run the game at 1080p on high settings, you will need a mid-range graphics card such as the GeForce GTX 1050. If you want to achieve playable frame rates on epic settings, then the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is your best bet.

QHD (2560x1440) & UHD (3840x2160)

If you have a QHD or a UHD display and want to run the game on high settings, then you will need a high-end graphics card. For 1440p, we recommend using a GeForce GTX 1060 or a GTX 980. For 4K, you will actually need a flagship graphics card such as Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080.

Note

Because benchmarking games is very time-consuming and often constrained by installation/activation limits, at the time of publishing, we were able to provide only a part of our performance analysis of Darksiders III. Other graphics cards will be added in the coming days and weeks.

Overview

Announced at least months ago (>0) Show only items with known benchmark results Still available (not archived) Show benchmark bars Show single scores on hover Show Percent Show performance classes Perf. Rating

(-) * Smaller values are better. / n123 Number of benchmarks for this median value / * Approximate position

Legend

5

Stutters – This game is very likely to stutter and have poor frame rates. Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, average frame rates are expected to fall below 25fps

May Stutter – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, stutters and poor frame rates are expected.

30

Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 25fps

40

Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 35fps

60

Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 58fps

May Run Fluently – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, fluent frame rates are expected.

?

Uncertain – This graphics card experienced unexpected performance issues during testing for this game. A slower card may be able to achieve better and more consistent frame rates than this particular GPU running the same benchmark scene.

Uncertain – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game and no reliable interpolation can be made based on the performances of surrounding cards of the same class or family.

The value in the fields displays the average frame rate of all values in the database. Move your cursor over the value to see individual results.